realtime54
George Takei 
🏳️🌈🖖🏽The next time you see high gas prices, remember that Exxon posted $9.1 billion in earnings for the third quarter of this year. The money is coming out of consumers’ pockets and going back to Exxon’s wealthy shareholders, to which it gave $8.1 billion in Q3.
Dr. Flowers
Staci Weir
⚡️ axeshun ⚡️ 
@AlliFlowers @georgetakei @Rasta you live in an area which allows unabated fracking and exploration. It's the same across the country. Oil & gas cuts slack to these areas.
I can drive 55 miles east and pay 30-40 cents less/gal in a county that is riddled with wells and continuous fracking and also they own almost all of property owner's mineral rights.
I can drive 55 miles east and pay 30-40 cents less/gal in a county that is riddled with wells and continuous fracking and also they own almost all of property owner's mineral rights.
mike805@axeshun @AlliFlowers @georgetakei @Rasta as long as we're griping about gas prices, let's take a moment to thank the green Biden administration for reducing oil supply JUST ENOUGH to maximize the profits of those evil oil companies and not a drop more.
Almost like they planned it that way. Nah, can't be. Oil companies are bad, after all.
Clinton Anderson SwordForHire
Liz "Not A Convicted Felon" D.We need to stop the subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.
lupus_blackfurMight want to check Shell's latest earnings to go along with this...
Exxon is not alone in excuse-flation...
We are being gouged across the board in all industries.
Charles J Gervasi ⚡🛡️🥥@georgetakei Fuel prices are low because they don't include the cost of damage to the environment.
Mark@cgervasi @georgetakei Right! When I see dudes driving three-quarter-ton pickup trucks 🛻 for light errands and commuting, gas is too cheap. When I see same trucks going 80 on the interstates, gas is too cheap. When parents drive their kids to school, rather than have them take the school bus, gas is too cheap.
@MarkBrigham I agree. I want people to have those things if they desire them, but if the cost to the environment were factored into fuel, people would choose other things to buy instrad and/or people would invent environmentally sustainable ways to move tons of metal around when doing daily errands. @georgetakei
Maureen Lycaon@cgervasi @MarkBrigham @georgetakei And maybe, just maybe, city planners would redesign cities less for the car and more for people using more sustainable methods of transportation.
@MaureenLycaon
I would like to live in such a city. My neighborhood in #Madison is slowly being urbanized, with car-lanes being converted to dedicated bus and bike lanes. It's a slow process.
https://www.madisonbikes.org/2021/10/bikes-and-bus-rapid-transit-what-is-planned/
I can imagine them building this neighborhood in 60s thinking it was an exciting new world where cars would so plentiful we would use them everywhere. 60 years later it looks like a horrible design, and very difficult to change.
@MarkBrigham @georgetakei
Bikes and Bus Rapid Transit: What is planned? - Madison Bikes
Bus rapid transit is coming to Madison. If all goes well, the first route will open in 2024, connecting Junction Road on the West Side with East Towne Mall. What makes BRT different from the local bus? The distance between stops is longer, the buses will have dedicated lanes for some of the route, and […]
@cgervasi @MarkBrigham @georgetakei I grew up in the Sixties, and I remember very well that cars were already taken for granted. That was why city planners pulled out most remaining public transportation and devoted huge swathes of space to parking lots -- and had just finished building a nationwide freeway system.
Gas was so cheap that planners and designers didn't even take the cost of it into consideration.
@MaureenLycaon
I bet the number of hours you need to work at a typical job to drive 300 miles is lower today than in the 60s.
The trouble is the parking lots make everything spread out and disconnected. A bigger problem is we're going to pay for this cheap energy in the future in the form of climate change. I don't think the worst-case predictions will come true, but I think it will be expensive to deal with.
@MarkBrigham @georgetakei
I bet the number of hours you need to work at a typical job to drive 300 miles is lower today than in the 60s.
The trouble is the parking lots make everything spread out and disconnected. A bigger problem is we're going to pay for this cheap energy in the future in the form of climate change. I don't think the worst-case predictions will come true, but I think it will be expensive to deal with.
@MarkBrigham @georgetakei
@MaureenLycaon @georgetakei @cgervasi
Yet our development patterns have made driving 300 miles a normal week of commuting and errands for so many.
Ray ☭@MarkBrigham @cgervasi @georgetakei I’ve never thought of it that way but you’re spot on!
Also worth mentioning that big trucks don’t pay enough for the damage they cause to the road surface either. Doesn’t even have to be a dually, these supersized pickups and SUVs are all too heavy.
Stephen Greenham@georgetakei Should you be mad at the company? or mad at the economic system that allows the rich to sit on their arses doing nothing and earn money?
Darwin Woodka@solarisfire @georgetakei why not both
@darwinwoodka @georgetakei At least some people at the company do work...
Gamal Sherif@georgetakei Thanks for the numbers. This reminds me that the transition to clean energy should be funded by the fossil fuel industry, among others. For example, why does the IRA provide incentives for electric vehicles when the passenger car industry should be converting to production of low-emissions rail? Why continue to privatize transportation - at the public’s expense - rather than convincingly commit to public infrastructure and walkable/rollable communities?
Number6 
Clearly you don't really think global warming is a problem.
No matter how high the prices get, I don't see anyone talking about car-pooling like they did in the 70s and 80s. In Calif, in 2021, the so-called "liberal" government even wanted to PAY people for driving!
So go ahead Exxon, yank those prices higher. As long as people are driving oversized vehicles meant to be used by farmers and construction workers, gas is too cheap.
@number6 @georgetakei but the money from gas sales should be going to the government to build transit, the government shouldn't be giving money to the oil companies.
The government seems to have little interest in building mass transit, and zero interest in increasing taxes to get people out of their cars, or even applying a luxury tax to oversized vehicles that make the world more hazardous for right-sized vehicles.
martinconnolly@georgetakei this shows the total failure of the market system for energy. There was never any actual shortage of oil caused by the Ukraine war. It just ramped up prices which only generated profits for the energy companies. Meanwhile fuel poverty is a real problem for millions. What a cruel and ridiculous state of afairs.
@georgetakei
Greedflation
Greedflation
@georgetakei As nothing is going to change with respect to Exxon's profits, the one thing we all can do, to varying degrees, is invest in ExxonMobil stock and start getting those Dividends...
Sane Thinker@georgetakei This article goes into big oil profits and other related issues, including the crackdowns happening on our rights to assemble and protest. https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/the-real-eco-terrorists
BrianKrebs@georgetakei Yes, absolutely. But here's the thing. Cars are expensive, but cell phones are probably the biggest expense that most people have each month behind food, rent, and car payments, and these companies make ~ $20B a quarter. At least the gas works 100 percent of the time. I would pay more if my mobile provider worked as reliably.
Andrew@briankrebs At least Verizon isnt profiting off climate change
Brownian_motion@cinebox @briankrebs Seriously? Energy for the grid, Data centers, cloud storage, towers, and “not profiting from climate change:?
@Brownian_motion @briankrebs thats just the cost of doing business and they don't have much alternative. they're not actively making things worse
John Carney@briankrebs to be fair, I use my phone more than my car.
The Penguin of Evil@briankrebs @georgetakei Blink.. just how expensive are US mobile phones, you make it sound as out of control as US medication.
Lower end UK phone contracts are under US $150 a year equivalent including unlimited UK normal number calling and messaging, plus a chunk of data
@etchedpixels @georgetakei Most US phone contracts are somewhere around $140 a month for a family plan.
Jon C@briankrebs @etchedpixels @georgetakei and therein lies the issue. The US does not have any kind of mechanism for people to push back on the ridiculous pricing imposed by telecom companies. Iirc high speed internet is just as expensive?
The biggest difference though, is that a large part of the profits Exxon is making are due to having automatically hiked prices along with the crude barrel's, but not regressing downs as fast, therefore overcharging profits in an uneven way.
Telecom just robs people blind at a fixed rate, normally.
Otmar Lendl@briankrebs @etchedpixels @georgetakei here in Austria, the mobile phone plans for my teenagers cost me 10 eur/month each. Add the one-time cost of a low-end android phone (150 € every 2 to 3 years)
This is not a significant expense, it's roughly at the level we pay to keep their hair tidy.
@briankrebs @georgetakei Ok that's like ten times the rest of the world. Good to know capitalism works in the USA 8)
I worked it out- my phone cost per year is actually lower than running the fridge/freezer.
zxm@etchedpixels @briankrebs @georgetakei
i use 'prepay' in ireland. about €5 a month covers my needs. limited data and calling but that suits me fine.
it used to be that the €5 of credit could last 6 months but they did away with that as i saved a fortune by waiting for people to call and message me. 😃
Shoq@georgetakei Which is just about as ridiculous it was in the 1970s. Which we also did nothing about. So it goes.
Lawrence Of Alaska@georgetakei $price cut .20 cents to 7.22 per gal
Jan Adriaenssens@georgetakei @lisamelton One more reason to devolve from gas asap (as in: ASAP).
climate voter/radical oldie@georgetakei Stick it to the man if you can. EV, bike, walking, scootering whatever.
@georgetakei We should take their profits by shutting down the fossil fuel industry.
Lee 🌏@georgetakei
Does anyone use Mid Journey?
Ask it to draw a cartoon with money flowing out of a gas station, straight into Billionaires Pockets.
Does anyone use Mid Journey?
Ask it to draw a cartoon with money flowing out of a gas station, straight into Billionaires Pockets.
CYPRIAN BEAZE@georgetakei Earnings is not profits. Not that they, EXXON ,deserve any sympathy, but you can earn a zillion and lose money if your costs are a zillion +1. 🙂
Seth@georgetakei
Just spent six weeks in France. Paid the equivalent of $8.00 a gallon for regular fuel.
Just spent six weeks in France. Paid the equivalent of $8.00 a gallon for regular fuel.
ErgonWolf@georgetakei It's a really really great thing to be reminded about, and I hear all the time about all these ways in which companies are reaping record profits during these inflationary times. And I'm left to wonder, what do we do about it? Do we all go to some park near Exxon's headquarters in January, "be there, will be wild"???
We need to solve this, but nobody ever says how we solve it.
PeachMcDGas prices are lower rn so #GQP talking point is Biden administration hurts fuel industries
🙅♀️💩😒
̶s̶e̶t̶h̶ ̶ ̶@georgetakei My "gas" prices are 12¢/kWh, about $7 to "fill up" or about 2½¢ per mile. Less if the sun is shining 🌤️. I haven't been to a gas station in years.
Buy a used EV, they're cheap.
Reach for the Stars 
@georgetakei I bought an #EV and now I don't care about the people who are paying out the wazoo to keep adding CO2 to the atmosphere.
Richard R Lee
Ultra Verified 🇺🇦 🇬🇱Historically, the price of gasoline at the pumps* is low in the US.
Western Europe prices are about 3 times higher because those governments tax fuels to try to offset the gross environmental damage they cause.
Gas is approximately no more expensive than milk. The 1960 price for gas and milk is about the same in today's dollars.
The discussion about gas prices is a media induced frenzy about nothing.
*Price at pumps does not include taxpayer funded oil subsidies, however
Not only are there record profits, there are record US government tax breaks and subsidies to oil companies.
@georgetakei You might also remember that your country is spending untold billions of dollars to support #ApartheidIsrael whist it carries out a #GenocideInGaza which is causing the price of oil fluctuate wildly and enabling excess profits for the oil companies.
Dean F.@georgetakei "Gas prices are too high," say people who pay $20 a pack for cigarettes.
Papaw Miller@georgetakei And I love the info ads from Concerned Americans for Renewable Energy that slams the California state administration for their inadequate steps to commit more to renewable energy. WHO SPONSORS THOSE ADS? Chevron!!’ Chevron! Whose CEO got a 10% rise in his bonus from last year! How much did Chevron spend on renewable energy?
Anthony Allison@georgetakei And the tech companies dwarf that, in terms of both gross earnings and profit margin. Exxon had a profit margin of about 10% that quarter; Google and Apple were 20–25% profit margin.
Anyone that owns a mutual fund is a "wealthy shareholder" that benefited from those dividend payments and stock buybacks.